Have you ever felt like your marriage has incurred so much damage that it might be beyond repair? There has been such a long season of disruption, pain, and perhaps betrayal to the point that you are not sure there is any way to come back from all that has happened? Perhaps you have looked at where your marriage is currently at and wonder if you have what it takes to get back what you lost, and even if you are willing to do the work, what does that even look like?
You are not alone in having these feelings. Many of us have an image of what marriage could be like. It could look like what was modeled for you by your parents, or maybe you want nothing that even resembles what your parents modeled, or most likely something in the middle of both of those images.
Regardless of that image, we all had expectations, which often differ from reality in marriage. Especially when it seems like what we currently have is broken. If this is where you find yourself and wonder what can I do that could even move me closer to what I want in my marriage, I want to encourage you to consider something.
Redefining Marriage Success
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Romans 12:2 Paul wrote this, recognizing our temptation to adopt worldly perspectives and solutions. At Hope Restored, we define a healthy marriage as one that both partners love, including its direction. And not necessarily for the same reasons.
This definition allows us to be set free from all the images we may have about what a healthy marriage is. And allows us to move away from comparing your marriage to other marriages. That marriage may work for them, but it would not work for you.
What I love about my marriage, may not be what my wife loves about our marriage, but if we both love it and love the direction it is going, then that is a win – win for us.The shift can come when we begin to be open to having something new and different in our marriage that did not exist before. It begins with changing the way we think about our marriage. Often couples want answers to four questions:
- If we can just agree who was right and who was wrong?
- Who is to blame?
- What really happened?
- What are we going to do about it? (This is a good question, but often asked too soon)
These questions are non-starters in saving your marriage.
The reason is even if we could really agree who was right or wrong, what really happened, or who is to blame, how will that really help us? The truth is that it won’t help. Why? Because even if it was possible to answer these questions, one person feels validated and the other feels devalued. This inequality never allows two people to move forward together towards helpful solutions.
The Power of Personal Responsibility
How can we make this mental shift? It begins with personal responsibility on our part. Attempting to change my spouse into my ideal version of her means trying to make her someone she’s not. If only she thought like me, acted like me, handled the kids like me, handled money like me, we would be doing fine. That never works. All it does is make us more frustrated and disappointed, if not depressed. Instead, what I can do is take personal responsibility to take care of managing myself well. How can I do this?
I can show up in my marriage with integrity.
I can show up honest and of the highest moral standards. When I show up in my marriage with integrity, it allows me to also show up safe for myself and for my wife. Now I can’t know and/or guarantee that my wife will also show up in their integrity, because again I don’t control her, or her choices.
I can show up trustworthy.
We all struggle with the idea about if trust is earned or given. The variety of answers to this question may equal the number of people you ask. The reason is we all have our own experiences with trust. Some of us have had trust broken and violated by people very close to us, maybe our spouse, so the idea of trusting is very scary.
If you maybe violated the trust of someone close to you, then you may wonder what can I do to get them to trust me again?
The truth is that we can’t make someone trust us. What we can do is we can show up in our marriage as trustworthy. We can show up worthy of trust, but that does not mean that they will trust us. That is the other person’s choice if they trust us.
Also, this is a daily choice. I choose to show up trustworthy every day, and I choose to trust someone every day. This is not a constant state, so some days I feel more trusting than others. Nobody is 100% trustworthy. I am capable of being hurt by anybody or hurting anybody. Trusting always involves some level of risk.
How to Save Your Marriage by Building Trust and Integrity
I need to make good boundaries for myself.
The idea of boundaries can bring up many feelings as some people struggle with boundaries, and we often feel that they are violated or broken. Here is the thing: we cannot make a boundary for someone else because there is no way to enforce the boundary we set for someone else.
They may not agree to the boundary in the first place, so they may not agree to stick to the boundary. But what I can do is I can make a boundary for myself so that when the boundary is broken by my spouse or anyone else, I can enforce it for me. For example, I cannot force someone to be safe, but if I don’t feel safe, I can choose to end a conversation or take some space.
The reality is that I don’t have control over anyone else – only myself.
The mental shift I can make to repair my marriage is who I control, and who I don’t control. Then based on this shift, I can decide how I want to show up to the marriage, and that gives me the best chance to get what I want.
When I show up in my integrity, safe, trustworthy, and with healthy boundaries for myself, I have done what I can to improve the marriage. Now it will require my wife to make similar choices for herself, and that is completely up to her.
If you want to know how to save your marriage, first, you have to remember, there are no guarantees. But that is okay. When I accept the responsibility to care for myself – with the hope my wife will as well – then I know that I can be well cared for, even if I am waiting well for my wife to join me there.
Aaron Cordova Bio
Aaron is a multi-state Licensed Professional Counselor as well as a licensed minister. In addition to over 20 years of professional counseling, he served in pastoral ministry for 8 years. Aaron has had the opportunity to work in private practice and pastoral counseling settings as well as community mental health centers. Aaron has a real passion to see God’s redemptive work done in marriages and has led multiple small groups and ministries for marriages in his local church. In coming to Hope Restored, he is excited to see God work miracles in the lives of the couples who come and bring life to places that seemed dead. Aaron and his wife, Teri, have been married since 1999 and have two children – one daughter and one son.
